Setting Priorities

I touched on setting priorities in my post about My ideal time management system, but here is a separate review of this topic.

Julie Morgenstern’s Return on Investment:

• Deadlines
• Estimated time
• Steps to results

Alan Lakein’s ABC Method:

• A-important tasks that contribute to goals MUST do
• B-moderately important SHOULD do
• C-least important COULD do

Stephen R Covey’s time management matrix:

• Quadrent I-important and urgent
• Quadrent II-important but not urgent
• Quadrent III-urgent but not important
• Quadrent IV-not urgent and not important

Increase Quadrent II activities, decrease Quadrent III and IV activities, and manage Quadrent I activities.

Time Management Tools has an article by Brian Tracy on Setting Priorities and couple more by him on other topics.
Always ask: “What is the best use of my time right now?”

Update

Luciano’s comment was a good reminder about the idea of time boxing. Dave Cheong has a good explanation of time boxing. David Seah’s tools are all about keeping on task too. Using a timer increases awareness of time passing by and focuses attention on high priority tasks.

I was also reminded of the good ole 80/20 rule. Jim Temme in the book “Productivity Power” says that we spend about 80 percent of our day working on job description activities (what I think of as repeating tasks) that yield only 20 percent results. The challenge is to use the remaining 20 percent of discretionary time on goal-related activities that yield 80 percent results.